Sexual sin

“ Now if abstinence from the satisfaction of the sensual impulse, the negation of difference of sex and consequently of sexual love,—for what is this without the other?—is the principle of the Christian heaven and salvation; then necessarily the satisfaction of the sexual impulse, sexual love, on which marriage is founded, is the source of sin and evil. And so it is held. The mystery of original sin is the mystery of sexual desire. All men are conceived in sin because they were conceived with sensual, i.e., natural pleasure. The act of generation, as an act of sensual enjoyment, is sinful. ”

“ Prostitution is a sin wholly of their own making. All the misery, all the lust, as well as all the blighting consequences, are chargeable wholly to the uncontrolled sexual passion of the male. To reform sinful women, reform the men. ”

“ And, in order to combat the habit of sin, a person should start with not increasing in himself that sin of sexual lust in which he is now. If the person is chaste, let him not violate his chastity; if he is married, let he remains faithful to his spouse; if he has intercourse with many, let he continues to live that way but not to invent unnatural sexual practices. Let he do not change his condition and do not increase his sin of sexual lust. If only people did that, their sufferings would end. ”

“ Comparative Malice of the Sins of Consummated Lust.— (a) In the abuse of an act, the worst evil is the disregard of what nature itself determines as the fundamentals upon which all else depends, just as in speculative matters the worst error is that which goes astray about first principles. Now, the prime dictates of nature as to sexual intercourse are that it serve the race and the family. Hence, the sin of unnatural lust (which injures the race by defeating its propagation) and the sin of incest (which injures the family by offending piety) are the worst of carnal vices. ”

“ Too close application to study was the cause at first assigned for her mental disorder, but a careful investigation of the case revealed the fact that the terrible sin which has ruined the minds of so many promising young men and brilliant young women was the cause that led to the sad result in this case also. The punishment of sin, especially of sexual sins, is indeed terrible; but the sin is a fearful one, and the penalty must be equal to the enormity of the crime. ”

“ Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! 6:16 Or don't you know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body? For, "The two," says he, "will become one flesh."* 6:17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. 6:18 Flee sexual immorality! "Every sin that a man does is outside the body," but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 6:19 Or don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God? ”

“ If it was not for the sin of sexual lust, there would be no slavery of woman, torturing of her, and at the same time, pampering and perversion of her; there would be no quarrels, fights, or killings based on jealousy, would be no reducing of woman to the tool of satisfaction of the body lust, the prostitution; would be no unnatural vices; no weakening of bodily and spiritual powers, no those terrible diseases that afflict humans now; there would be no neglected children or infanticide. ”

“ On the other hand, misuse or abuse of the sexual organism is visited in girls and women, as in boys and men, with the most fearful penalties. Nothing will sooner deprive a girl or young lady of the maidenly grace and freshness with which nature blesses woman in her early years than secret vice. We have the greatest difficulty in making ourself believe that it is possible for beings designed by nature to be pure and innocent, in all respects free from impurity of any sort, to become so depraved by sin as to be willing to devote themselves to so vile and filthy a practice. ”

“ For a person who has chosen the way of serving God by means of procreation, an inborn sin will be considered any sexual intercourse without the aim of procreating, as is happens in cases of prostitution, random affairs, and with the marriages of convenience, of profit, of amatory exploits. ”

“ Legal enactment makes a distinguishment in crime on the ground of sex, and the public conscience, being formed by legal enactment, of course endorses the distinction. Morality stamps as sin any sexual action which inflicts any real injury on an individual or on society, whether the act be incepted by man or woman, or be done with the full volition of both. ”

“ The world today advertises the fact that this or that will give "sexual appeal." This is lasciviousness. Wearing clothing that does this is sin. Acting in a way to cause others to have lustful emotions is a sin. That is, if a person purposely acts in this way, or dresses in this way. Speaking words and making signs that does this are sins. Oh, God is calling for a pure and holy people! His church, which is made up of holy (sinless) people, is without spot and blemish and has been cleansed and made pure through the blood of Jesus Christ. ”

“ Sacrilege, of course, aggravates every other kind of carnal sin, and thus there is sacrilegious sodomy, sacrilegious adultery, sacrilegious incest, etc.
2523. Fornication.—Fornication is the copulation of an unmarried man with an unmarried woman who is not a virgin.
(a) It is copulation, or sexual intercourse suited for generation of children. Thus, it differs from lewdness, which consists in unconsummated acts, and from sodomitic intercourse, which is consummated but unsuited for generation. Onanism is an aggravating circumstance of fornication, or rather a new sin of unnatural intercourse. ”

“ When so strict is the law of Brahmacharya, what shall we say of those guilty of the unpardonable sin of illegitimate sexual enjoyment? The evil that arises from adultery and prostitution is a vital question of religion and morality and cannot be fully dealt with in a treatise on health. ”

“ Now there are several different ways of viewing this new and added sexual possibility in the human family, namely, the act of coitus for other than reproductive purposes. The Catholic church has always counted it as a sin. ”

“ Parents would often refrain, on the plea that innocence must not be disturbed, from teaching their children anything about sex. So impure and evil a subject must not be referred to. Such unpleasant problems as venereal disease must be hidden out of sight, although prostitution and venereal disease continue to flourish. The Victorian, in fact, carried out the Puritan doctrine that all sex is evil, by outwardly pretending that, unless married, he possessed no sexual instinct. ”

“ Gentle reader, don't think that this law is cruel or unjust, for the amount of evil that a depraved woman can commit in spreading, that loathsome disease, syphilis, is incalculable, and Christ when he told the woman that had committed adultery that he did not condemn her also added: "Go and sin no more." ”

“ And, knowing that sexual lust is an evil for me, I know, too, the temptation that used to lead me into it, and I can no longer yield to it. I know now that the chief cause of this temptation lies not in powerlessness of people to resist sexual lust but in the separation of men and women from those to whom they were once united. I know now that the forsaking of those to whom men and women have been once united is the ‘divorce’ that Christ forbids, for it brings depravity into the world. ”

“ Another bestial tendency is the lust of the male for the female apart from love, duty, and loyalty; this again has been encouraged by religion, as witness the polygamy and concubinage of the Hebrews—as in Abraham, David, and Solomon, not to mention the precepts of the Mosaic laws—the bands of male and female prostitutes in connexion with Pagan temples, and the curious outbursts of sexual passion in connexion with religious revivals and missions. ”

“ While girls are not so likely to be taught or to discover this vice, and are not likely to practice it to the extent of boys, yet authorities claim that one-third of the females practice the secret sin at some time in life and to some extent. It is claimed by some authorities that more women, than men, are in the asylum because of this vice. This is because their nervous system is so much more delicate than is the case in men. In schools and sometimes among servants in the home may be found a sex-pervert who will take a fiendish delight{127} in teaching this vice to a little girl. ”

“ Laying aside all the morality of the subject, I never could appreciate the exquisite, refined taste of a gentleman or any man who had any self respect, who could associate with women common to everybody. And what puzzles me now is how any man belonging to a Christian church and professing to be a follower of Jesus, who was purity itself, can be guilty of sexual immorality. They are foul hypocrites, and besides, traitors to Jesus as much as Judas was. ”

“ My comment is that I despise the frozen, perverted religiosity which would make a sin of sex. Imagine the torture, the pains, the miseries which have ensued since self immolation has been raised to a virtue and a duty. Think of it—healthy animals all of us, or we ought to be—and it is a crime to think of love and sex! ”

“ The immortal spirits that come to earth to tabernacle in bodies of flesh have the right to be well-born, through parents who are free from the contamination of sexual vice.
"It is a deplorable fact that society persists in holding woman to stricter account than man in the matter of sexual offense. What shadow of excuse, not to speak of justification, can be found for this outrageous and cowardly discrimination? Can moral defilement be any the less filthy and pestilential in man than in woman? Is a male leper less to be shunned for fear of contagion that a woman similarly stricken? ”

“ Subjects affected with partial paranoia often turn the heads of susceptible women by the aid of ascetic religious phraseology, to gratify afterwards their sexual passions. The worst cases are those who are able to hide from the public their delirious ideas, and pass for normal individuals, misunderstood victims, or even saints. I have examined a very orthodox clergyman, highly esteemed by his congregation on account of his ascetic and enthusiastic preaching. In his own home he illtreated his wife, half strangled her, and exacted all kinds of sexual depravity. ”

“ Perverted sexual habits often arise from [57] a craving for variety, or as makeshifts adopted when the opportunity for normal sex intercourse is denied. Our efforts must be directed towards removing these causes by raising the general standard of social morals.
Religious morality has been the cause of untold mischief in this matter of sexual perversions by representing as great sins and crimes actions which are in reality the result of a diseased mental state.
The habit of self-abuse is also extremely variable in its origin. ”

“ There are married women, who feel and express disgust at sexual intercourse with their husbands, and who allow such acts to take place only as a sacrifice, believing themselves doing something sinful or wrong. ”

“ When science is allowed to enlighten sexual life freely and openly, the hypocrisy of normal people will cease, and that of the abnormal will be recognized in time and prevented from doing harm.
Transformation of Eroticism into Religious Sentiment.—In ordinary life we find everywhere traces of the mixture of religion with sexual sensations and images. The religious ceremonies of marriage among all peoples constitute a significant remnant thereof. ”

“ Further, the sin of lust is curbed by marriage: for it is written (1 Cor. 7:2) : "For fear of fornication, let every man have his own wife." Now rape is an obstacle to subsequent marriage, for it was enacted in the council of Meaux: "We decree that those who are guilty of rape, or of abducting or seducing women, should not have those women in marriage, although they should have subsequently married them with the consent of their parents." Therefore rape is not a determinate species of lust distinct from seduction. ”

“ They have their sex impulses, and will follow them, and the only question is, shall they follow them wisely or unwisely? The religious people decide that sexual indulgence is wrong, and they impose a penalty—and what is that penalty? A poor, unwanted little waif of a soul, which never sinned, and had nothing to do with the matter, is brought into a hostile world, to suffer neglect, and perhaps starvation—in order to punish parents who did not happen to be sufficiently strong willed to practice continence in marriage! ”

“ Who is the more depraved—the vendor or the purchaser of woman's honor? In many cases a power of discernment and analysis superior to human attainment is essential to a just verdict, but it appears certain that whatever of palliation through stress of circumstance may be found for the woman, guilty lust is too generally the primal motive of the man.
"The low esteem in which strict sexual morality is currently held is an element of positive danger to the nation as a human institution, to say nothing of the wholesale debauching of souls as an offense against Divine decree. ”

“ In lunatic asylums, prisons, reformatories, etc., men are attended to by men, and women by women. The vow of chastity of Catholic priests and nuns leads in the same way to separation of the sexes. In all these customs sexual inversion has not been taken into consideration. ”

“ We must not forget that the facts of reproduction seem to ignorant people and especially to barbarians, to be of a very mysterious nature. These people have no idea of germinal cells or their conjugation. They see in conception, embryogeny, pregnancy and birth, the miraculous effects of a divine and occult higher power—of the divinity, often even of the devil.
The violent excitement which is associated with the sexual appetite and with love urges man to ecstasy; hence it is not to [348] be wondered at that eroticism is so often complicated by ecstatic religious sentiments. ”